Former Meridian softball star chooses unusual career path

Meridian shortstop Taylor Smith throws to first base during a district tournament game against Morley-Stanwood in 2012. (Daily News file photo)

Photo: Midland Daily News

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Meridian shortstop Taylor Smith (middle) is congratulated by her mother, Mustangs' coach Jamie Smith, following an inning-ending double play during a 2012 district tournament game. (Daily News file
Meridian shortstop Taylor Smith (middle) is congratulated by her mother, Mustangs' coach Jamie Smith, following an inning-ending double play during a 2012 district tournament game. (Daily News file photo)

Photo: Nathan Morgan

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Meridian's Taylor Smith gets a lead off of second base during a 2009 game against Harrison. (Daily News file photo)

Outwardly, former Meridian softball standout Taylor Smith exudes energy, vitality, and life. It is perhaps ironic, then, that she has chosen a career in which she is surrounded by death.

Smith, 24, earned a bachelor's degree in mortuary science from Wayne State University recently and just began working at Case Funeral Home in Saginaw last week. As she noted, the mortician's life is not for everyone.

"I think it takes the right person to do it. You have to have a good personality to deal with the sad families and people who are grieving," she noted. "And at the same time, when you're working in the prep room and getting bodies ready to be shown for the family, you have to be light about the situation.

"You're around death every single day, so I think it does take a good personality and someone upbeat to do that (job)," she added.

A 2012 graduate of Meridian, Smith went on to play softball collegiately at both Macomb Community College and at Olivet College, helping the former team to reach the National Junior College Athletic Association Division II national tournament in 2015. Along the way, she also earned a cosmetology license from the state of Michigan and earned a bachelor's degree in health science.

"I always wanted to do the cosmetology thing. That and my love for science are the two things that led me to (becoming a mortician)," Smith noted, adding that she first became interested in that career path after watching a video of an autopsy during anatomy class at Meridian.

"I thought, 'This is super cool, but I don't really want to find out how (people) die,'" she said. "So I talked to (teacher Amy Boxey), and she said, 'Did you ever think about being a mortician?'

"I had never really given that a thought, so I started looking into (mortuary science), and I decided, 'Maybe this could be for me,'" she added.

Smith said the deal-clincher for her was working part-time at Smith-Miner Funeral Home in Midland "just to make sure it's what I wanted to do."

"They helped me sort of fall in love with (mortuary work)," she said of Smith-Miner. "They were really great there, and they taught me a lot."

Now, Smith will complete a six-month apprenticeship at Case Funeral Home and hopes to work her way into a full-time job. She said she seems to have found her calling.

"I'm a people-person, I love talking with the families (of the deceased), and I love the science part of it," she said. "That (combination of factors) was pretty much the end of it for me."